A good
understanding of a country may help you to make the most of
your trip by giving you an insight into the minds of the nationals.
That is the purpose of this series.

Chocolate
Mousse
and Two Spoons

Lorraine Jenkin

Lettie
Howells has hit a new low. This is the last, the very last, time,
Alan – her soon to be ex – is going to leave her counting the
bruises. Her two housemates and super-sorted sister persuade her
that she's not going to find the man of her dreams among the ageing
tourist traffic in Lyme Regis and she duly sends off her contribution
to the Lonely Hearts columns. From a motley crew of respondents
she selects Doug Evans – a jolly but 'once-bitten' hunk of a Welsh
forester. But the path of true love does not run smooth: there's
two whole communities of friends and relations to muddy things
up... not to mention an unexpected brush with fame - and maybe
fortune - thanks to 'reality tv.

Can
YOU contribute to this feature?

If you can write
1,200 - 1,800 words in a style similar to this template article
on the Italians
we would like to see it. It should humorously and aptly describe
a nationality we have not already covered. It will be treated
as one of the FreeStyle articles for competition purposes
and could therefore win you a prize.

For further details about this please
visit our Contributors
page. Make sure you head your article and email 'Getting to
Know...' followed by your chosen NEW nationality.

Personality. Argentine
people have BIG personalities. They are generous and friendly and will
take you into their bosom and talk with you until you can talk no more.
And then they will talk some more. They have all the time in the world
to converse and have an opinion on everything. Even the quiet gentle
ones will talk when they can get a word in above their more gregarious
friends. Some are loud and dominant, waving their arms in their excitement,
even if it is a conversation about the more mundane things in life.
Others sit very quietly, yet still command attention. The joke about
how to punish an Argentine (put him in a room on his own) seems to be
very appropriate!

Resourcefulness. Argentine
people are adaptable and resourceful. Money is tight for many and near-poverty
is an accepted way of life. There is no spare money to go around and
being resourceful is expected. I found so many things mended in the
most imaginative ways and the Argentine lack of Health and Safety excesses
mean that people could use their repair jobs until they fell apart again.
I saw armchairs strapped to the back of trucks with another layer of
the family sitting in them. I saw boxes tied tightly to the side of
mopeds with a baby poking its head out of the top. Everything was saved
to use at some time – and it would be!

Business. Business is
everywhere in any form and only having one thing to sell is not a valid
reason not to open a shop. People are selling in every street –
vendors selling ice creams or clothes or both. Farmers sell at markets,
from the gateways, from their bags. After the rocky economic times of
the 70s and 80s, Argentina is struggling to regain stability with high
unemployment and underemployment. It is very susceptible to fluctuations
in neighbouring economies and corruption is still an issue. However,
these situations have born a people rich in business acumen and any
one of them could sell a sunburn to a Gringo!

Mate. Mate (pronounced
mah – tay) is an Argentine ritual that must be partaken.
Mate is a herb from the llex paraguayensis also known as Paraguayan
tea. It is made in a small gourd with hot water poured onto the herb.
The drink is sipped through a straw with a bulb at the bottom with small
holes in that stop the herbs being sucked up, called a bombilla. There
is important etiquette surrounding the drinking as the gourd is passed
clockwise around a gathering and each person drinks their gourd-full
and then passes it back for re-filling. Regardless of who is to your
right, you are not supposed to wipe any dribble off the bombilla as
that would be very rude.

Mate is passed around any group of people, including in buses and even
through bus windows if the bus has stopped long enough for the incumbents
to stick their head out of the window for a chat. People carry thermos
flasks and their mate paraphernalia as easily as women carry their handbags.
Some even have little pouches made for their gear!

Entertainment. Money
may be tight but that is no reason not to enjoy life. Argentines do
not stay at home feeling hard done by, they promenade the streets at
night chatting to each other, or they sit in their front porches shouting
to the people on the other side of the road. Doors and windows are thrown
open and everyone is open to conversation and fun. Lines of chairs sit
in what look like the oddest of places – until you see the people
who congregate to sit in them and then they look perfectly situated.

Dancing. The beauty and
grace of young Argentines make them perfectly suited to dancing –
and particularly the Tango. I had never realised how sexy this dance
can be until I saw it on the streets in Buenos Aires. Women with their
faces painted into stone and their hair scraped back wore red and black
and entwined themselves round their men as crowds watched in a trance.
As soon as the music stopped, the dancers returned to being just people
handing round the hat and the crowd would wander off before it got caught
for some cash. I could never bring myself to wander away in time; they
were always mesmerizing!

Dogs. Dogs are everywhere.
They are scraggy mutts that roam the streets all day and play in the
dust together. They are, on the whole, friendly, but can be quite intimidating
to the unaware. They are always large and have no collar or any other
means to catch hold of them. No one ever walks them, they are just tipped
out of the house by day and possibly brought in at night. Evidence of
them is obviously everywhere too, but no-one seems to get too uptight
about that; it’s just part of life in Argentina.

Welsh. Welsh is one of
the dozen or so native languages spoken in Argentina. Welsh nationalists
docked in Patagonia in 1863 to seek a remote land where they could practice
their religion and cultural ways without interference from the English.
153 people arrived first and, despite early difficulties in adapting
to the conditions that put them close to starvation, they thrived following
help from the local Tehuelche. Soon others joined them and together
they occupied a whole region in the Chubut Valley. The language is still
spoken by a few today, but their presence is better noted by the low
cottages and the streets named Micheal Jones or Bryn Gwyn.
For Welsh pilgrims, the tea rooms are very welcome and the only place
in Argentina where you can buy a decent cuppa! Great tea-pots covered
in bright tea-cosies and plates full of Welsh cakes make up for the
fact that pictures of “Lady Di” cover the walls!

Family. Family, and
huge extended family, and anyone who is friendly enough who is being
treated like family, are very important. Children are loved and expected
to be everywhere. They are not given separate facilities in the Play
Barn kind of way, they are just absorbed into every aspect of life.
Squalling babies are gathered up by strangers, bus conductors and friends
and therefore don’t squall for much longer. Very few people have
pushchairs, so babies and small children are carried everywhere and
therefore are far less tetchy than ours. Pregnant women are patted and
pawed by everyone and all are happy for their fate. Some supermarkets
even have special tills for pregnant women to prevent them standing
for any longer than necessary.

Religion. Argentines
are Roman Catholics in the way that people should be religious. It is
not worn on a sleeve, but is a way of life. People sit in churches for
a rest, to keep cool and to listen to the speakers that line up to speak
or read from the pulpit.

Food. All Argentines
love good food and it is an important social element in their day. Everywhere
you look there is access to food. When buses stop people start buying
it through windows, or women nip onboard to sell a few nibbles. The
Argentine special is obviously the barbeque – not silly little
round tins with thirty minutes worth of charcoal on it, but great big
structures with coals that burn for enough hours to cook the cow that
is turning above them. The steak house, or parilla, will offer a selection
of cuts and you point to the bit you think you want and then sit back
and watch. Argentines eat plenty of beef – they have plenty of
it roaming around – and they know how to do it well! Vegetarians
are greeted with disbelief. Most vegetarian options will include ham.

The Gaucho. He is Argentina’s
romantic figure, their equivalent of the cowboy. He used to roam the
pampas, a master at looking after cattle and horses by day and drinking
and gambling by night. He was a rough character who lived in even rougher
conditions and would never be tamed. He could be identified by his baggy
trousers and black hat. Today’s Gaucho tends to be a little more
suburban and probably lives in a little house.

Mañana – meaning “tomorrow” is used often
as a shrug and an “ah, I’ll do it another day,” gesture.
It is typical of the laid back culture and one of the reasons that Argentina
is a great place to be in. People don’t get stressed, they just
look at their workload and say, “ah, Mañana!”

One last word of warning after this insight — be careful
of the stereotypes! Whilst you can always draw a thread of similarity
between the nationals of a country, the extent and size of that thread
may vary widely!

Sandman

Ian Kingsley

A gripping psychological thriller with characters that reach out and grab you. Sandman touches our primary emotions: jealousy, love, fear, hatred, and grief. The dialogue is authentic, and, along with the scene-painting narrative, you’ll feel like you’re on the beach witnessing the unfolding action.

The Playgroup

Janey Fraser

With an opportunity to prove herself, Gemma can't wait to take over Puddleducks Playgroup. But the new head of the infant school, Joe Balls, soon tempers her enjoyment. Meanwhile, Nancy is in turmoil. Her only son has just started at the playgroup and her husband has taken a temporary posting to Vietnam. There never was much hope of conceiving her much-wanted second child so what is she to do now? A tumultuous term lies ahead for all.

He's Just Not That Into You: the No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys

Greg Behrendt, Liz Tuccillo

You really like this guy, but he's giving mixed messages. So stop kidding yourself! This smart, funny and surprisingly upbeat book covers every excuse woman has ever made to avoid admitting to herself that a man just wasn’t that smitten with her.

Dead Men

Richard Pierce

Birdie Bowers, an infamously secretive painter, is a woman given a dead man’s name by her obsessed parents. Her namesake was one of Scott’s companions on his fated expedition to the Antarctic. Almost a hundred years after his death, she is determined to discover what really happened to him accompanied by Adam, a bored computer geek, who falls in love with her. But Scott’s tent is now under 30 metres of ice.